Alumni Profile: Wellford Dillard, MBA ’97

Wellford Dillard, MBA ’97, is a guy who knows how to grow a business. He has in impressive track record in helping turn around struggling companies. Today he is using his financial expertise to help sick people get well.

Dillard is CFO of GetWell Network, a leading provider of interactive patient care solutions to hospitals around the country. The company’s CEO, who is a cancer survivor, came up with the idea of giving consumers more control over their care. The company’s subscription-based software controls in-room TVs and devices that provide instructional videos to hospital patients. The mix of videos is customized for each patient; watching the videos helps patients understand their condition and treatment. Patients can also use the device to ask doctors and nurses questions before seeing them in person, which makes it easier to have informed treatment discussions. A mobile app helps patients remember what medications they are taking and what their treatment directives were after they are released from the hospital.

“We feel like we kind of invented this industry, to where the healthcare industry recognizes that we need to move back to a patient centered environment, not a clinician centered environment,” says Dillard. “We're moving into the C-suite as a key part of the patient engagement strategy.”

At the Social Enterprise Symposium, Dillard brought his unique expertise to a group of 19 MBA and undergraduate students during an invitation-only boardroom discussion on “Innovation and Financial Strategy: Scaling Impact.”

“When you work in venture-backed businesses, the money comes from outside owners, so fiscal responsibility is important. But fiscal responsibility and social responsibility are not separate things, and social responsibility can create profits,” Dillard says. “At GetWell Network, every time we've made the right decision for the patient, it's also been the most profitable decision for our investors.”

Originally, the company’s goal was to be profitable by 2012. That could have been done, but instead Dillard showed the board how the company could instead make investments to improve patient outcomes, which would improve the company’s ROI story, which would drive sales. “Those things are not obvious from a P&L perspective,” says Dillard. “Today we have fantastic ROI and new products that have been important for patient outcomes. And our sales were three times that of the previous year. We’re going to double in size and revenue this year.”

The company can boast of some impressive outcomes as a result of its hospital partnerships. One hospital experienced a 60 percent reduction in its readmission rate. Another realized a 24 percent increase in staff responsiveness. One medical center saw its pharmacy revenue rise by $1.6 million, just because GetWell Network’s software reminded patients to fill their prescriptions. The company is so highly regarded that last year it was sold to Wells Carson, a private equity fund that specializes in healthcare IT.

Dillard is passionate about improving patient outcomes. He uses his financial acumen to help GetWell Network make the most of its resources for the benefit of the patients it serves. Dillard urged students to be similarly passionate about the work they do, no matter where their skills are employed: “People are more passionate about their smart phones than they are about their jobs. How can you be more passionate about your phone than you are about where you spend one third of your life?”

About the Robert H. Smith School of Business
The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and part-time MBA, executive MBA, MS in business, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.